HOWTO_debug.md

HOWTO Debug C++ Code

By Michael Hahsler

You need to have gdb (GNU Project Debugger) installed.

In VS Code

1. You may have to configure CMake for debugging by clicking in the status bar on CMake: [Debug] and select Debug.
2. Set a breakpoint (red dot) to the left of a line number in the source code.
3. Click the debug symbol in the status bar which starts a frontend for gdb.
4. Use the navigation panel (appearing on the top of VS Code) and inspect and watch variables.

If you want to debug your program with the VS Code run button and command line arguments, then you can set the command line arguments in VS Code and CMake:

• CTRL-SHIFT+P type settings.json and choose Preferences: Open Work Space Settings. This creates settings.json in the .vscode folder.
• Add the following lines:

  {
  "cmake.debugConfig": {
     "args": [
         "argument_1",
         "argument_2"
     ]
    }
  }
  

Command Line Debugging With gdb

1. Find the compiled executable (in VS Code it is in the build directory)
2. Start gdb executable.
3. Set a breakpoint with b and use run. See the GDB QUICK REFERENCE for available commands.

License

All code and documents in this repository are provided under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License.